I, the author, make no claim as to ownership of "Hey Arnold" or any of its characters. For a full disclaimer, see Chapter 1.
V
Shock
There are few simple joys that can compare to a Monday without school. While the rest of the world proceeds as usual, young students get to enjoy a day without having to pretend they're sick or worrying about getting caught skipping school. These were days to be fully taken advange of, and somewhere in Hillwood, two young lovers were doing just that.
It was an unusual place to be on a Monday - especailly at 10 in the morning - but now was not the time for asking questions. In the middle of a dimly-lit room, one could hear the sound of loud, rhythmic thumping and nearly inaudible gasping for air. The thumps got louder and quicker, quicker and louder, ending with a short pause and a loud bang. After moments of silence, the young man's eyes met those of his beautiful young lady; a wide smile on his face.
"So..." Gerald asked, heavily panting. "How... did I do?"
Phoebe smiled back. "That was... amazing! I never knew you could move like that."
"Sometimes... I amaze... myself." He was about ready to collapse.
"Should I get some towels?"
"Yeah," he replied, regaining a bit of breath. "And some water, too... please."
"Of course, honey." With a quick kiss on the lips, she slipped away. With Phoebe gone, Gerald collapsed on the ground. He smiled as he began to bask in the afterglow of what he just accomplished.
"What song was that, by the way?" asked Helga from her chair, three feet away from the action.
"Paranoia... Survivor... Max," replied Gerald, between gasps.
"Cool." She took a quick sip of her drink. "Is it hard?"
Gerald turned towards Helga and stared at her in disbelief. "Let me reitirate; It's called Paranoia... Survivor... Max!"
"Oh," she uttered before taking another short sip.
"Does it sound easy to you?"
"I... I guess not..."
"I defy you to put those three words together... in any combination... and make it sound remotely easy!"
"Alright, already," she exclaimed as she threw her hands up in defeat. "I get it!"
"Sorry, Helgs," Gerald sighed. "I just... I get a little testy when I'm dehydrated. My bad."
"Eh, don't worry about it. It's not like I couldn't put you back in your place anyways..."
"Thanks... I mean, HEY!" Before he could return fire, he felt a chill on the back of his neck. He quickly turned his gaze upward and saw Phoebe standing over him, paper towels in one hand and a condensating - and, as Gerald discovered, very cold - bottle of water in the other.
"Drink," she said, handing the bottle to her beloved. "You know how you get when you're dehydrated." Gerald let out a mocking chuckle before bringing the bottle towards his lips. Before he could take a sip, he saw a blur of blonde approaching the group.
"My god, it's alive!" yelled Gerald. Sure enough, it was the football-head quickly making his way to the table, albeit groggily. If there was any question about whether or not Arnold was a morning person (is any high school senior a morning person?), his appearance was a definitive answer. His loose t-shirt was wrinkled, his hair was a mess, and his tired eyes made him look like he was either just waking up or just recovering from a hangover.
"Good morning to you, too," he muttered to Gerald as he grabbed a seat next to Helga. "What happened to you?"
"Paranoia Survivor Max," he said, as he pointed to the Dance Dance Revolution machine.
"Cool," Arnold responded. "Is it hard?"
Gerald froze. "Let me reiterate; it's called..."
"Drink your water, honey," pleaded Phoebe.
"But Feebs, it's Paran..."
"DRINK."
"Yes'um," uttered Gerald as he did what he was told. It was all in good fun between the two of them, but he didn't want to take any sort of chances. Contrary to a couple of his teachers' beliefs, he was a very smart man.
"Now that that's settled," said Phoebe with a smirk, "what brings the creature of the black lagoon to our table?"
"I forgot we were meeting up this early," said Arnold as he wiped something out of his eye. "Just woke up, actually."
"Noooo," gasped Helga in the most surprised mock-surprise she could muster.
"You'd think it takes hours to look this good, wouldn't you?"
Helga quickly bit her tongue to keep from saying something she'd never live down. Instead, she offered up a deep thought. "You know who you remind me of, with the hair? That one guy."
"You mean the guy with the hair?" asked Gerald with a smile.
"And the head?" chimed Arnold. Their conversation suddenly became very spirited.
"Oh, yeah! He was the one with the eyes!"
"And he did the thing?"
"You know, with that one guy?"
"Oooh, what's-his-name?"
"The one with the weird thing!"
At this point, Phoebe couldn't keep herself from joining in on the fun. "Was it the one with the face?"
"Yeah, the face!" Arnold cried.
"Et tu, Feebs?" sighed Helga. She took yet another quick sip of her Yahoo while the others shared a laugh. "Seriously, though, he reminds me of that one guy from the Strokes. Julius... something."
"You're right!" exclaimed Phoebe. "Julius..." She began snapping her fingers, hoping it would spark some sort of answer. "...can't think of it."
"Damn, that's gonna bug me for the rest of the morning," said Helga as she took another swig of her caffinated nectar.
"By the way," asked Arnold, still trying to shake himself awake. "Why are we here so early?"
"Cause me and Feebs gotta pick up some prom stuff that we forgot to get last night," replied Gerald as he took a swig from the water bottle.
"After last night, we were just so tired..." Phoebe added.
"I'll bet."
Gerald looked puzzled. "What does that mean, Arnold?"
"I think you know exactly what that means."
Gerald paused for a moment and began to nod his head. "Yeah, I think I... No. I have no idea."
"Last night, when Helga called."
"What about it?" asked Phoebe, who was just as puzzled as her man.
"You two were busy."
"...yeah, so?" asked Gerald.
"Busy."
"...no clue."
"Busy."
"Aw, criminy!" cried Helga. "Remind me to never use innuendo with any of you ever again!"
"Helga," began Phoebe, "what does innuendo have to do... with..." She trailed off.
"Look," said Gerald as his face began to turn a brilliant red. "Let's not talk about what may or may not have made us gather here so early. The important thing is that we're... St. Lunatics and we here now!"
"Who?" asked Phoebe.
"The St. Lunatics!" He looked at the two blonde tablemates for a response, but got nothing. "C'mon, now! Don't tell me you haven't heard of the 'Tics!" Still nothing. "Ali? Murphy Lee?" His eyes were filled with near-terror."Nelly!"
"Gerald, don't worry," said Arnold. "I'm sure they'll make it big soon."
An awkward silence fell over the table.
"Man, you guys are hopeless..." said Gerald with a sigh.
"But it's probably a good thing that I'm up. I've only got three weeks, and I- JULIAN CASABLANCAS!"
"That's right!" cried Helga. "How could I have forgotten?"
"Knew it would come to me." Arnold got back to the business at hand. "Anyways, I've got three weeks, and I still haven't picked out a suit for prom."
"I'm surprised Alexis hasn't ripped your head off for that one," joked Phoebe. Or at least, she tried to make it sound like she was joking.
"Actually... we broke up."
"Finally!" cried Gerald. "I mean..., well, what I meant to say was..."
Arnold put his hand up to stop his him. "Don't worry about it. It's been a couple weeks, so I'm fine."
"A couple weeks?" said Phoebe. "Arnold, why don't you tell us these things?"
"That's what I said!" cried Helga.
"So who are you bringing?" asked Gerald.
"Well..." Arnold's face began to turn a little red. "Funny story..."
Well, I was stuck on this chapter for a long time. I had two different starts going (the other one being where Chapter 6 will pick up), seeing if either of them would get anything going in me, and for about a week, it was with no success. But all of a sudden, I just got on a roll, and voila! Chapter 5 is here for your enjoyment. Hopefully you guys and gals enjoy it.
CmarieL, thanks for the encouragement. I have this whole thing about Arnold/Helga/KG/Timmy that I won't go into here. I have to say, though, for the state of Minnesota, from the bottom of my heart... we're sorry for "giving" you Rasho Nesterovic. Our bad. We promise we won't do it again.
Antoinette, I'm glad someone else liked the BBD idea. It just sort of came to me one day, and I decided I had to work it into this story. Wyld, I fell victim to Section 4, Article 11, Pgph. 1 many a time myself. Although nobody thought I was having sex... and I'll leave it at that. Everyone else that has reviewed, and those that haven't, thank you for reading my story. Chapter 6 will be here... eventually.
